There are plenty of write-ups and think pieces on the internet about You Can See Everything right now (and, I mean, not without reason—I think it’s as provocative as anything in the last ten years in that regard), so I won’t add too much to that particular pile.

One thing that does send chills down my spine, though, is that the people featured in a documentary that is exploring manipulation, self-interest, control, and pathology are just two examples carved from the Silicon Valley arena of entrepreneurs who are attempting to dictate the future of western civilization (and, unfortunately, at the moment are largely succeeding). Evidence has been mounting for decades that the people in this niche exist on a spectrum between morally dubious and downright evil—and the film does an accidentally remarkable job at showing how the mentality it takes to live in that world plays out in everything about life that isn’t a business matter.

(It is also striking that this movie is exactly the kind of thing that AI could never produce. The creativity that has spawned the cultural phenomenon and dialogue around this film is the essence of what I mean when I say a machine cannot make art. This is nuance, it’s being able to understand human nature and question it simultaneously with equal and opposing force. It’s being able to navigate the unknown in a way that is emotionally resonant. It is, quite ironically, the type of thing that the Silicon Valley tech proponents would disregard in the face of a chat bot being able to replicate the style of Van Gogh.)

The AI company Anthropic lost $80 billion in the first half of 2026. The tech industry accounts for thirty-two percent of the entire value of the S&P 500. The ‘leaders’ of tech believe in the end of humanity—which could easily explain why they don’t seem to care about the risk involved in widespread economic collapse. The writing on an AI bubble bursting has been on the walls for some time now. Yet with this technology, it’s not that I mind the idea so much as I do those building it.

Invention is not a bad thing. But when you don’t believe in people, when you don’t care about even trying to understand art, and you’re kind of indifferent about the collapse of society, your hands should not be anywhere near the wheel that is driving us all toward the future. There are people who use guns to hunt for food, there are people who use guns to force others to do their bidding, there are people who use guns to outright murder. The people at the helm of the future of the world right now are the ones would at least qualify to be in the second category, and there are plenty who are just fine with the third. So when I say something like, AI terrifies me, it’s not that I’m scared of a machine, but rather what it will learn from its inventor.

Zionists will be lamenting the attack against Israel today in 2023, and it’s a load of bullshit. Not that the attack didn’t happen or anything—but that Israel is somehow the victim. When decades of oppression and violence result in retribution, you can’t collectively claim innocence.

There’s also the fact the IDF was ordered to enact the Hannibal Directive, which basically says to kill anyone and everyone—Israeli soldiers and citizens included—to avoid hostages being taken. These casualties were blamed on Hamas, even if they were not the ones who pulled the trigger. (This is from a report by Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.)

The years since have seen non-stop violence perpetuated by Israel, predominantly against citizens, with complete support of Israelis and western governments alike. American colleges punish protesters and quelled free speech while allowing for violent counter-protests and police intervention. England mass arrests the public who support Palestine. Primary media sources—The New York Times stateside and the BBC across the pond—both have repeatedly published support of Israel and frame headlines constantly to portray them as the victim and downplay what is happening in Gaza.

Simply put, if you support Israel now you would have supported Germany then. Perpetuating a genocide can be swept under a flag of any color. Seeing other people as subhuman to the point they deserve extermination—especially when your justification is some millennia-old myth from a book—is ideologically grotesque to the point there probably isn’t a word vulgar enough to describe it.

It’s hard to write about the fraternity rape at Cornell. Not because the story is surprising by any stretch of the imagination, but because it isn’t.

Hope has felt like a lost cause lately. Even if the seven directly accused in this case all went to prison, it wouldn’t change frat culture nationwide (where I would imagine stories like this happen far more frequently than anyone wants to think about). This incident is a symptom, not the disease. And this disease in particular is just like, a variant of a larger, deadlier one rotting away at everything in this godforsaken country.

These days I’ve been thinking a lot about Confederate flags. There was this whole segment of the United States that had to be literally beaten into submission and practically burned completely to the ground due to an unflinching support of a great evil. And still today, people fly that flag with pride, hoping for a systemic resurrection.

All I know is that everything is cyclical. We are in a moment of opinion, and at some point, someone is going to say, “Talk is cheap,” and the first domino in what happens next will fall. Violent institutions and the systems that protect them inevitably create a violent response, and every day we’re getting new examples as to why it’s time to burn it down, flags and all.

I haven’t really been writing much about politics these days. When I do, it tends to be pretty local or small-scale. Though I haven’t been making a ton of art, any political ideas never get too far.

Earlier this year, Conor Oberst talked about the difficulty of making protest-oriented art in the time of Trump. It’s the great paradox of Trump that is perhaps the most interesting thing about him: For a man with so many obvious character flaws, with only self-interest in his heart, he is remarkably difficult to actually insult. He is incredibly vain and therefore does care about image, but only in a specific capacity that art, or perhaps even language, doesn’t have a known capacity for.

Like I said, it’s a challenge, but one that I would think and hope any artist would be up for at least trying to overcome. That hasn’t really been my problem. Trump is just a guy, and in the end he’s a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.

What has become impossible, though, is reconciling the parallel horrors that have become the background noise of everyday life. The ongoing genocide in Gaza being one line; the Epstein Files being another. Blatant evidence of human life being ruined or ended at a massive scale to no consequence at all.

I have to imagine the only parallel in the United States would be living during the time of the slave trade. Slavery allowed for the evil to be on display the way it is now being broadcast over social media—after slavery but before the internet, the forces of white supremacy could use the media to generally control the discourse around atrocities. They could two-sides any scandal.

But there’s no way out of this one. These events are a mirror. From Palestine to Little St. James, there is no excuse for the systems that are operating via child trafficking, murder, mass rape, or ethnic cleansing to continue—much less for those who participate in any of it to get away unscathed. There is no room for debate. At some point, a line must be drawn, and to my mind, we crossed it years ago.

I’ve always felt that art is the closest thing we have to being able to get a better understanding of the soul. But these past few years have been killing off whatever was left of that human spirit, to the point where I ask myself, What am I even trying to relate to anymore?

Making art right now feels like hosting a party inside of a burning house. Anyone who wants to be entertained in this moment isn’t someone I’d want to entertain. But the lack of consequences for these monumental horrors are now embedded in our culture. And that makes me feel I just don’t want to participate in that culture any longer.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin imagined a future where only wealthy people would be able to travel and ‘those of lesser means’ would only be able to experience the world through a VR headset. He goes on to talk about how that might create a divide between rich and poor. Jesus Christ.

It’s quite obvious how the chess pieces of technology, corporations, capital, violence, and governance are being aligned right now to create a future where the majority are ruled with a generally automated iron fist by the few. It’s the plot of endless sci-fi stories, but what comes to mind is Elysium, where the rich build themselves a giant space station as the rest suffer on a burning Earth patrolled by robots. What’s also evident is that those who aren’t quite wealthy, but live comfortably above most, are generally in favor of this divide, even though it would likely see them stuck holding the short end of the stick with the rest (see: Ross Sorkin and the entire NYT op-ed section).

There’s a good chance it is too late to do anything about it. While groups of people who lean left politically exist in the United States, they’re predominantly in urban areas and proportionally tiny compared to the population at large—a population that believes capitalist neoliberalism is ‘left-wing.’ The type of change required to do anything about wealth disparity—via reform or revolution—is simply impossible. In turn, the country will be forced to look on as the people are robbed, their food supply poisoned (or, eventually, lost), and any reaction brutally policed by stalkers and thugs using AI surveillance. (Even at the local level, despite outrage from the people who elected them, city councils are voting in favor of building data centers everywhere.)

Meanwhile, the wealthy and their fans will go on to have discussions about how they’ll be perceived as all of this violence against humankind continues unpunished. The United States has probably passed any point of anyone in power having to deal with any kind of consequence for any action whatsoever. We can’t even properly handle cops standing around for hours during a mass school shooting, much less force the release of the Epstein Files. This country has volunteered itself into submission.

China might be able to reframe the balance of power in the world and possibly diminish the role of capitalism in the future, but the United States will surely burn itself to the ground—and as much of the world as possible—before that happens.